The present invention relates to methods and materials for treating plants. More particularly, the invention is directed to methods for increasing the yields of crops and food constituents derived from plants by treating the plants with spores of Bacillus uniflagellatus. Unless otherwise stated, the term "treating plants" as used herein will be understood to include the treatment of plant seeds, plant seedlings, or full grown plants or plants in any stage of development.
The microorganism employed in the practice of my invention is designated Bacillus uniflagellatus. A culture of the organism is on deposit with the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC No. 15,134), and is available to the public from the American Type Culture Collection, 12301 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, Md. 20852.
The morphological and physiological characteristics of Bacillus uniflagellatus are set forth in detail in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,617,448, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Other published materials relating to Bacillus uniflagellatus, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, are my papers: Bacillus uniflagellatus: Sp.N. Its Unusual Characteristics, The Southwestern Naturalist 13(3), 349-352, Dec. 10, 1968; and Inhibition of Tobacco Mosaic Virus By A Bacterial Extract, Phytophathology, Vol. 59, No. 5, 658-662, May 1969.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,617,448 discloses that an antibiotic substance which is produced by Bacillus uniflagellatus can be advantageously used to treat plants to control various fungal and viral diseases of plants. For example, fusarium wilt and damping off can be controlled by soaking cotton seeds and peanut seeds in a viable culture of Bacillus uniflagellatus; root knot nematodes may be controlled by spraying an aqueous solution of the antibiotic on the leaves of tomato plants; or the antibiotic or a culture of the Bacillus uniflagellatus may be applied to the soil in which plants are being grown in order to control various diseases by absorption of the antibiotic through the plant root system.
My above-mentioned article Inhibition Of Tobacco Mosaic Virus By A Bacterial Extract describes in detail experiments in which local lesions from tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) were reduced by adding the bacillus to the soil of tobacco plants or adding extracts from the cultures of the bacillus to the soil or spraying the extracts on the leaves of the tobacco plants.
While the application of cultures of Bacillus uniflagellatus or the application of the antibiotic substance produced by Bacillus uniflagellatus has been found to produce excellent results in treating plants in various manners, it would be highly desirable to have a simpler and more economical method and material for treating the plants to achieve comparable results.
This invention has as an object the provision of an improved method for increasing the yield of crops and food constituents derived from plants.
This invention has as another object the increase in over-all weight of plants from a given amount of seed.
This invention has as still another object the increased yield in terms of higher permissive stress or density of planting for crops, namely more plants or crop per given unit of area of soil.
This invention has as still another object the increased yield of valuable food constituents derived from plants, such as protein.
This invention has as yet another object an improved method for improving the health of growing crops, and the avoidance of plant diseases.
This invention has as yet another object the provision of a mixture useful for the treatment of plants to increase yield and utilization of growth potential.
This invention has as yet another object the provision of seeds coated with spores of Bacillus uniflagellatus, and a method of adhesively securing spores of Bacillus uniflagellatusto the seeds.